


Life, Itself

by Missy



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Building a Community, Building a Life, Building a family, Celebrations, Character Study, Drinking, Fix-It, Gen, Mentioned Character Death, Spoilers, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 03:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12879219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: Having survived the Seven Wonders, Misty tries to forge a life for herself outside of Miss Robichaux's Academy.  But she often finds herself drawn into the drama happening at the school, leaving her straddling two worlds - life in New Orleans and life in the quiet simplicity of her swamp.





	Life, Itself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariestess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariestess/gifts).



> I tried to give this the complicated feeling that tends to come with thinking you're rootless - only to develop roots where you least expected to. I tried to avoid the show's lean toward explicit gore in general too. I hope you like what I did with your prompt!!

There was something automatically magical about a swamp.

Misty’s swamp was large and wet, painted in shades of grey, green and black, like a heavily bruised brain. Its atmosphere weighed against Misty’s slim shoulders like a damp shawl, heavy and sheltering. It smelled like rot and soured vegetation; it smelled like something infected. It smelled like the basement in a morgue, something Misty was all too familiar with lately.

But, more importantly, it smelled like home.

Cordelia seemed to feel incredibly uncomfortable standing there, her hands shoved awkwardly into her pants pockets as Misty flitted about her cabin. “I really wish you didn’t want to come back here.” Cordelia was standing in the doorway of Misty’s shack, which she’d been carefully bringing back to order in the weeks since she, Madison, Zoe and Queenie had failed the Seven Wonders and opened the way for Cordelia to become the new Supreme. “There’s always room for you at the school.”

Misty gave Cordelia a fond sideways smile. “I know. But considering the hospitality Miss Madison showed me, I don’t feel quite so obliging to stay about.”

Cordelia winced. “She’ll have a few thousand years to learn her manners.” Misty had been forced to revive her after Kyle had tried to harm her in the middle of the Seven Wonders – god knew what she’d said to him, he tended to turn into a rabid puppy when angered. She thought it was a miracle that she’d been able to bring her back, but Madison had not been in a forgiving mood. The whole school had tried to convince Misty to stay, but in her esteemed opinion it wasn’t worth the strife. She’d learned a hard lesson about ambition, and she wasn’t about to backtrack herself right into a cold grave.

“I don’t believe it’ll take her less than a century to learn how not to kill,” said Misty. Cordelia winced, and Misty immediately began to explain herself, “This is why I’m going to make my own way in the world. Having a tribe is nice and all but the only thing I learned from that Seven Wonders thing is that I was made to be a solitary witch.” She drew her shawl closer to her breast and said, “I’ll come visit you.”

Cordelia said, “We’d be glad to have you any time you want to see us. Zoe already misses you so much.”

Misty nodded, took in the words carefully. “Just don’t expect me to stay there. That school gives me the creeps.”

“Me too,” Cordelia admitted. “But it’s home.”

Misty smiled crookedly at her. She didn’t understand Miss Cordelia at all, but she was awfully fond of her.

 

 

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Misty’s people came to her in dribbles. A young mother turned out by her abusive husband, with a baby who had a high fever. A young girl running away from an abusive father. A boy who felt out of place in his school. They settled into her swamp at a distance, in houses that Misty built with her own hands. They learned the trade of her herbs and mud, of her incantations and her spells. 

But there were other kinds of people came to Misty’s swamp much more often. They didn’t stay for long. The desperate and the curious, or the accidental visitors; they took their wise advice or their bottle of tonic and returned to where they came. Misty kept her arms open. She was careful to treat everyone as she wanted to be treated and as they treated her. That was how she instructed the people who fell in with her teachings.

Cordelia came the most, sometimes with the other girls. The new ones always hovered by the doorframe of Misty’s shack, listening to Stevie’s music fill the air and watching with round, uncomprehending eyes.

Misty’s power was life itself, and she was always determined to respect that.

 

 

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Time passed, and with it Cordelia’s need for experienced people to watch over the women and men in her care rapidly expanded. She ended up begging Misty to come to town every month and teach one class in restoratives. 

“I don’t think it’s right for me to be doing this without a certificate,” Misty said, drifting light as air between the desks that had been set up. She’d been careful when designing her lab; there would be nothing cold or clinical about the circle where she’d pass along recipes and advice. 

“I don’t have anything myself,” said Cordelia. “But when it comes to us…I believe kindness is in the blood.”

So Misty braced herself and held on, lecture after lecture. Her first class went well. And the next. And soon it felt customary to wander up to that big, imposing house and hear a couple hundred voices calling her name as she swung her shawl over her shoulder.

But as welcome as they tried to make her feel she would never truly belong among them.

 

 

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Before she knew it, she was a fixture at the academy. Misty simply and easily became a constant help. When Cordelia’s students had minor problems, she understood them. When Queenie disappeared during a trip to LA, Misty was the one who held down the fort while Cordelia dealt with the staff at the Cortez. It was Misty who took the pieces of Queenie and put them back together; the rest of the returning, even the full-blast return of the salty lifeforce that was Queenie, was the young girls' doing. 

When Madison or Queenie needed help with their lives post-resurrection, Misty tried to be there for them. She'd survived the tumult herself and knew too well the weight of fear and wrongness that could press hard upon a person's head. 

It didn't help. The girls still fought like wet cats, still struggled with numbness and fear. But Misty wouldn't stop, couldn't stop.

There was a party to celebrate Cordelia’s second anniversary as the new Supreme. Stevie was there, and this time Misty managed not to pass out in her presence. Some of Misty's kids came with her to New Orleans this time – but she’d encouraged most of them to stay home, still not trusting the school’s black heart to do well by her people.

By the end of the night, she and Stevie were passing a deep brown bottle of home brew back and forth, sitting out under the starlight, cackling at the moon. Soon she was merry enough to start singing, a private duet for swamp water and moonlight. Misty ground the base of the bottle into the soft ground by her ankle, grabbed Stevie’s hand, and stood up with her, whirling unsteadily into a dance to the sound of the Doo Wop record someone had put on turntable inside.

It was the most magical moment of her life.

 

 

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Home was a lot of places. Misty had come to understand that. It was the school, and Cordelia's smile, and Zoe's wide-eyes and Queenie's toughness. It was watching a baby walk and getting crocked. It was eating fried chicken and collared greens on a blanket in a cemetery. It was on this earth, and somewhere beyond the veil.

She brought big jugs of brandy to the Yule party. Cordelia welcomed her with a smile, hugging Misty to her chest like a long-lost friend. 

Misty only hesitated on the doorstep of the academy for a second before plunging over the threshold.

The warm air was filled with feminine laughter, and the sound of happy days to come.


End file.
